


Grief

by Amethystina



Category: The Losers (Comic)
Genre: All the sad tags basically, Because this is about moving on after losing someone, But also coming out on top afterwards, Depression, Five Stages of Grief, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Major Spoilers, Mentions of PTSD, Not just the pain, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic, dealing with grief, discussion of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 06:36:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5037673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amethystina/pseuds/Amethystina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most people don't understand that grief isn't a fixed emotion. It's not the quiet, mournful sadness you feel when you're reminded of who you have lost, or the moments spent reminiscing — longing for what once was and regretting what never came. </p><p>Grief is a state of being.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grief

**Author's Note:**

> This is known as the fic no one wants to read. Which is completely understandable, mind you, because Major Character Death scares the shit out of pretty much everyone (with good reason). Even so, I didn't write this to torment anyone — not me, you, or Jensen. I just think that there has to be a lot of angry emotions after the end of the comics, and this is my take on how Jensen would handle them. It's a study of both Jensen and Cougar, and how they deal with grief and guilt.
> 
> Also, I wanted to write this for _me_. Dealing with grief is... difficult, and while I understand that no one wants to read this because it hurts too much, it gave me something to be able to write it. I got an outlet for thoughts that have been circling in my head for months, and for that I am grateful. And for that simple reason, I'm determined to post it.
> 
> But no, I can't say that this story has a happy ending, even if it's wrong to say that it's an _un_ happy one, too. This is about how Jensen works through his grief and anger, but eventually manages to keep living. I think it's pretty hopeful, to be honest...

 

Most people don't understand that grief isn't a fixed emotion. It's not the quiet, mournful sadness you feel when you're reminded of who you have lost, or the moments spent reminiscing — longing for what once was and regretting what never came.

Grief is a state of being.

It never stops. It's always there, perching on your shoulder when you buy groceries, whispering in your ear when you want to sleep, and creeping under your skin when you try to work. Grief can permeate every single one of a person's actions, thoughts, and emotions, to the point where everything they touch is colored by it — lingering behind like black, smudged fingerprints.

Grief doesn't go away. Grief, unlike sadness, can't be cured by mere happiness, or be conquered by activity and curiosity, like boredom. Grief is constant.

In the two years after New Jerusalem was blown sky high, Jensen learned a lot more about grief than he ever wanted to know. The first two months he was in a state of shock; he couldn't even fully grasp what had happened, let alone what it meant for him and his future. He was sad, of course, but he wasn't grieving, maybe because a part of him still hadn't understood what this all meant.

That Cougar was actually _gone_ , and would never, ever come back.

Jensen didn't have a body to bury. In a way, he suspected that it would have been easier — that he might have come to terms with the loss sooner — if he had been given that much. A body would have been tangible, undeniable proof of Cougar being dead, but Jensen wasn't that lucky. All he had was a heavy, sinking feeling in his gut and a hole in his chest, telling him that his best friend had simply ceased to be. That everything Cougar was had been ruthlessly obliterated, until only the smallest of components were left — so small that not even Jensen could make much sense of them.

How was he supposed to grieve when the loss felt so insubstantial that Jensen had a hard time believing it had even happened? When there was no proof? How was Jensen supposed to accept it when he still found himself looking for Cougar, as soon as he turned his head?

The loss wasn't something Jensen could touch or see — Cougar just wasn't _there_ anymore — so how was he supposed to come to terms with it? How was Jensen supposed to mourn something that had slipped through his fingers and ceased to exist in a bright, violent explosion, leaving nothing behind?

It wasn't until month three that it really hit home.

He was in Barcelona on what he told himself was a vacation, but considering the fact that he had been traveling nonstop without any kind of destination in mind ever since Cougar had died, it looked more like he was running away. He should have been fine. Max was finally dead, the world was saved — the majority of it, at least — and he could relax.

Only he couldn't.

Because there was something missing and he couldn't find it, no matter where he searched and how many countries he visited. Sometimes he felt a lingering whiff of it — like an elusive scent in the air or a brief glimpse in a crowd — but he wasn't able to pin it down. He couldn't grasp it or hold it.

Not until Barcelona, where it all came crashing down.

He wasn't even sure why. There were no big revelations or epiphanies that seemed to be the cause. He just woke up one morning and couldn't get out of bed. It felt as if a relentless, merciless weight was pushing him against the mattress, and it didn't matter that he knew that the pressure wasn't physical — he still couldn't move. His limbs seemed locked in place, while his head felt heavy and sluggish enough to leave him disoriented and increasingly alarmed.

He couldn't move. He couldn't speak. He just _couldn't_.

He felt disconnected — adrift, somehow — as if he wasn't fully attached to his skin anymore, and existed in some weird vacuum where he had no influence over his own body or what happened to it.

He wasn't even sure if he cared.

Whatever strength he managed to gather was spent on curling up and burying his face in his pillow. The sheets smelled of cheap detergent and his own shampoo, but as grounding as that should have been, it only made him feel more distant. Like he couldn't fully catalogue the sensory input into something useful.

After a couple of agonizingly long minutes the tension in his body and growing thickness in his throat became too much. One hitched, trembling breath was all it took for him to start crying.

At first he had no idea why. His thoughts were too muddled and hazy for anything to make sense. All he knew was that his chest was constricting to the point of pain and in his desperation he clung to the sheets like a lifeline, pathetically hoping that it would make him less likely to break.

It didn't.

He spent over three weeks in that hot, cramped hotel room in Barcelona, completely unaware of the outside world, too blindsided by the suffocating grief to care. He was a complete mess, refusing to move if he could help it, staring vacantly at the opposite wall or ceiling, barely eating or sleeping. It just didn't seem to matter anymore.

The loss paralyzed him in a way that would have terrified him, had he been present enough to actually realize what was going on. But while in the middle of it he just couldn't see that far. He barely even managed to contemplate what would happen the coming hour, let alone his own deteriorating mental state.

It took him weeks to get to the point where he could work his way through the mind-numbing sense of sorrow and actually deal with the fact that Cougar was lost to him. It didn't matter how much he mourned him — Cougar still wouldn't come back.

Once it caught up with him, Jensen finally realized that it was the grief he had been running away from, and that no matter how much he searched he would never find what he was looking for. Cougar was already gone. There was nothing left of him to find. There was no relief to be had — no place where Jensen would feel more at ease or less heartbroken.

All he had was the grief, and it followed him around like a shadow.

Because grief wasn't an emotion — not to him. He didn't just feel it when they played a song on the radio that reminded him of Cougar, or when he was lying alone in bed, trying to sleep; he felt it all the time. It became a burden he had to live with — a lifestyle on its own, that he had to embrace and learn to accept, unless he wanted to succumb to it entirely.

He carried the grief with him wherever he went. He felt his heart squeeze every time he heard someone speak Spanish. He turned away whenever he caught a glimpse of a cowboy hat. He refused to look at the photos on his hard drive, where he and Cougar were smiling.

He couldn't bear the thought of seeing himself happy.

It would be wrong to say that he was in denial — he couldn't deny that Cougar was dead even if he wanted to — but he was hiding from the truth. He tried to shove it aside and avoid it. He ignored it. He pretended that everything was fine when it was anything _but_ that.

He just couldn't deal with his own emotions. For two months he existed in a cloud of blissful, forced ignorance, but that couldn't last forever. Just like the loss had slammed into him that one morning in Barcelona, he couldn't keep the thoughts at bay. He couldn't pretend the doubts and unanswered questions weren't there — not indefinitely. He was inevitably forced to accept what had happened.

Which opened up the door for anger.

Jensen knew all about the five stages of grief and he might have been a bit too enthusiastic with the anger. Especially since the majority of it probably wasn't supposed to be directed at the person who had died. But it was. He was so fucking _angry_ at Cougar. Not because Jensen felt lonely — although he did, painfully so — but because Cougar had given up.

Cougar had chosen to die, before it was actually guaranteed that he would. Granted, the odds hadn't exactly been in his favor, but he had made the decision to stop fighting. Cougar wasn't supposed to give up, not like that. And while Jensen could easily have argued against it — even forced Cougar to keep going — he loved Cougar too much to put him through that.

Jensen knew that if he had insisted on staying, Cougar would have been forced to make a last, desperate attempt to survive, because he wouldn't have been able to bear the thought of Jensen dying because of him. A part of Jensen regretted not being selfish enough to have tried, but another — the biggest part of him — knew that it would have been bordering on inhumane to refuse to leave.

It was one thing to be selfish and another entirely to purposefully hurt his best friend — to guilt him into prolonging his own life when he was fully prepared and ready to die.

Because Cougar had wanted to die. He had wanted the peace and quiet. He had wanted to finally get some rest, and even if it hurt Jensen — even if he sometimes woke up screaming from panic and grief — he hadn't had the right to deny Cougar that. He could have forced Cougar to live on, but it wouldn't have been fair or what Cougar wanted.

It would have been punishment rather than salvation.

Jensen wasn't blind. He had seen Cougar shut down, slowly but surely, growing quieter and more distant for each month that passed. There hadn't been much Jensen could have done about that. He had tried, of course, keeping Cougar grounded and distracting him with whatever nonsense Jensen could think of, but he had always known that Cougar was slipping.

There was no magical fix for PTSD, or the depression that came with it.

Cougar hadn't been suicidal — far from it — but definitely casually self-destructive and careless about his own safety. He had subconsciously been looking for a way out for months. Maybe he hadn't known that it would end up being so final, but he had definitely wanted the pain to end somehow.

For months, Jensen had seen where things were heading and had tried to prepare himself for the inevitable conclusion, but it still shook him to his core when the moment arrived. He still couldn't accept that Cougar had essentially decided that fighting wasn't worth it — that dying was the easiest solution.

Jensen wanted to call Cougar selfish, for having made that choice. For having ended his own life before it was absolutely certain that he wouldn't survive. Jensen wanted to feel justified in his anger, but he knew Cougar too well to be able to. It was Cougar's life. It had been his choice, no matter how much Jensen would have wanted to have a say in the matter.

And it wasn't like it had been a hasty decision, or one Cougar had made lightly. Jensen knew that Cougar had held on for as long as he possibly could, but when everything aligned so perfectly, someone like Cougar — who believed in a higher power and that there was always some kind of convoluted plan at work — would take the opportunity. Max had been taken care of, Roque was dead, Clay was dead, and with the help of the bomb Cougar could eradicate the last of Max's followers _and_ find his peace. To Cougar, that had probably seemed like the perfect ending, all tied up with a nice, neat little bow.

Except that it left Jensen lost and alone.

But Cougar had deserved his rest. He really had.

Cougar had always been more emotional and sensitive than Jensen. Not on the outside or in a way that had made him weak — Cougar had been steady and dependable even when he was crumbling on the inside — but it had left him vulnerable in ways Jensen couldn't quite put into words. Cougar had been invested and concerned in a way that Jensen could only vaguely relate to. Jensen might love life and everything it had to offer, but Cougar — he _cared_.

There was a subtle but considerable difference.

Where Jensen could bounce back after a defeat, a little worse for wear but generally whole, Cougar would mourn what had been lost. He would linger on what they had left behind and would care about the consequences in a way that Jensen found himself unable to, if he wanted to maintain his equilibrium and not lose himself to despair.

Then again, Cougar obviously hadn't managed either, considering how it all went down in the end. He had, according to Jensen, committed suicide, because he had chosen to die before it was confirmed that it was his time to go. Jensen had still had hope — foolish and desperate as it might have been — but Cougar, he had given up. He couldn't hold on anymore.

In the end, Cougar had never been weak, but he had been more human and a better person than Jensen could ever hope to be, because Cougar had _cared_. Not just about those closest to him, but children that weren't his and lives he couldn't possibly save.

Cougar's heart had been bigger than his body or psyche could possibly contain.

And Jensen had a certain degree of understanding for that. He knew that Cougar hadn't wanted to leave Jensen behind to face the pain of losing his best friend, but there was only so much Cougar could take. In a way, Cougar had probably trusted Jensen to survive the grief better than Cougar would have, if he had been forced to keep going for another couple of years.

Still, Jensen wished that Cougar could at least have tried. It was selfish and inconsiderate of him, Jensen knew that, but losing his best friend made him less worried about the guilt. He wished that Cougar would have been willing to compromise.

Jensen wanted to bargain, but there was no one there he could haggle with. There were no deals on the table or ways to change what had happened.

Cougar was dead, simple as that. Cougar had disappeared into that blinding light, burned out of existence so completely that it almost seemed as if he hadn't been there in the first place.

Cougar was gone.

Cougar had _chosen_ to disappear.

In his darkest moments, Jensen couldn't help feeling that maybe Cougar would have tried harder if Jensen had been worth it. Maybe Cougar wouldn't have made the decision to leave him if Jensen had been better or kinder or nicer. Or just someone Cougar couldn't stand to lose. Maybe Cougar would have tried then.

Maybe it was Jensen's fault. Maybe Jensen should have pushed harder and tried to be someone Cougar would have wanted. Maybe Jensen should have made a bigger effort. Been a better friend. Been less of a nuisance. Been brave enough to kiss him like he so desperately had wanted to for years.

But he hadn't, because you don't kiss your best friend without having to suffer through the inevitable consequences. And Jensen hadn't been selfish enough to put that on Cougar's shoulders when he was already suffering under the weight of what he had seen in Afghanistan.

It hadn't seemed like the right time; now it was just too late.

Maybe he should have taken the chance when he had had it. Maybe it could have proven to Cougar that Jensen was worth it — that Cougar had had something left to live for, despite the guilt and agonizing nightmares. That Jensen would stick with him, through thick and thin, no matter if he was a little bit broken and unstable.

Jensen could be worth it, if he was just given the chance to prove it.

But fact was that Jensen wasn't. He wasn't worth the suffering Cougar would have had to put himself through, if he had decided to live on. Jensen hadn't had that kind of sway over him. They had been best friends and Jensen loved him more than he suspected that he would ever love anyone again in his entire life, but that hadn't been enough.

Jensen wasn't enough.

Not that it was a surprise. Jensen wasn't sure if he had ever felt good enough, in any aspect or during any stage of his life.

Still, he knew that it wasn't either of their faults. It wasn't a choice either of them had made, and things wouldn't have been any better if Cougar had decided to live on just for Jensen's sake. That would have been a shadow of a life, at best. Intellectually, Jensen knew this, but it didn't change the fact that his throat seized up as soon as he thought about it.

He wasn't good enough.

But it had to count for something that Cougar had tried so hard to keep Jensen alive. Cougar had undermined every single one of Jensen's feeble attempts to get them both off that oil rig, because all of them had risked Jensen going down with him. Cougar hadn't wanted Jensen to stay, because it would have meant him dying too.

Still, it was a small consolation in the great scheme of things. Jensen had still lost his best friend and that wasn't something he could easily accept. Not when he had always — foolishly and gullibly — thought that maybe he and Cougar had the potential to become more.

The thought itself wasn't the foolish bit — they had been incredibly close and Jensen knew that he hadn't misinterpreted the signs — but to think, even for a second, that Cougar would be whole enough to want to pursue something like that? Yeah, that had been naïve of him. Because Cougar had given up long before he detonated that bomb. He had started to shut down long before he sent Jensen on his way, while Cougar stayed behind, bleeding out on the dirty, metal floor of that cursed oil rig.

Jensen was the only one who had really gotten through to him those final couple of weeks. Cougar had still obeyed orders and talked to the rest of the team — wordlessly as it might have been at times — but only Jensen could reach the very core of him. But even that wasn't enough, because there were so many things that Cougar wasn't willing to share. He had tried a couple of times, words thick and stumbling, but it had only offered momentary relief. Jensen hadn't been able to lighten the darkness that seemed to have swallowed Cougar ever since that mission in Afghanistan.

And Jensen didn't begrudge him that, but it frustrated him. It made him angry, because he hated how Cougar had suffered. He wished he could have fixed it, because every time Cougar had slipped further away from him, Jensen had felt his heart clench.

He had, for a brief, foolish couple of hours, hoped that things might change and move in a different direction that time when the others had thought that Cougar's insubordination had gotten Jensen killed. Cougar had hugged him — had _clung_ to him — with a kind of desperation that seemed to mean something. And in a way it had. Cougar must have realized that his recklessness could affect others; it could get Jensen killed.

Maybe it shouldn't have come as a surprise that it hadn't made Cougar feel any better.

Jensen would have preferred if the situation had made Cougar see that he still had things he thought to be precious and worth saving, but that hadn't been the case. Cougar had still chosen to die in the end.

And that, more than anything, was Jensen's problem.

He could deal with the loss since everyone died sooner or later. You couldn't be a former Spec Ops soldier without being excruciatingly aware of your own mortality. But there was a difference between being prepared to die and _wanting_ to die. Jensen could see the distinction — even understand why Cougar had made the choice — but accepting it was a different matter entirely.

Intellectually, Jensen knew that Cougar had been happy with his choice and that it had been a relief to him, to finally be able to let go, but Jensen couldn't accept it as easily. He was too attached to _Cougar_ to be able to forgive. Losing his best friend — who might or might not have been the love of his life — hit him too hard. He wasn't in a gracious or forgiving mood, not even months after the fact.

He could handle the grief on an everyday basis, but coming to terms with Cougar choosing life over death took time. A lot of time.

Jensen was almost back to normal by the time he met up with Pooch, one year after the showdown. It still hurt — because it always would, just like Jensen would always carry the grief with him — but he wasn't an angry, depressed mess anymore. He made do. He had worked through the worst of the loss.

Seeing Pooch both helped and made things worse. Meeting up made Jensen miss the good old days, but also reminded him that he wasn't actually alone. Someone else was mourning Cougar — they were mourning their fallen comrades together.

It was strangely liberating to be able to reminisce about old, fond memories, even if it hurt.

Those memories were a part of a past that Jensen couldn't return to, no matter how much he might want to, and he would never get a second chance to say and do all the things he should have been brave enough to say and do. Whatever feelings Jensen had for Cougar — and probably always would — were never going to be actualized. They were never going to be reciprocated or made official, because Cougar was gone. It was already too late.

Jensen was fairly certain that Pooch would have asked if Jensen hadn't been so obviously reluctant to talk about it. The others must have known, or at the very least _suspected_ , that something more was brewing between Jensen and Cougar. Jensen hadn't really tried to hide his feelings, to be honest — especially not after they left the Army — but he hadn't shouted them from the rooftops, either.

Maybe he should have.

He kinda regretted not having done so. It would have made him feel less like a coward now, if he had actually taken a chance and told Cougar how he felt. Maybe that wouldn't have changed things, but Jensen wouldn't have had to carry the frustrating feeling of _not knowing_. Cougar might even have wanted the same thing as Jensen, but now he would never know. The hints he had gotten weren't enough to make a firm conclusion and Cougar wasn't there to answer the questions anymore.

Jensen would have to live with the regret for the rest of his life.

And maybe that wasn't such a big deal — he was already carrying the grief, his inability to accept Cougar's choice, and the creeping feeling of loneliness. What difference could a little regret make?

Sometimes, when Jensen felt at his absolute worst, he took out his gun, just to see if he would end up making the same decision that Cougar had. It was an experiment, of sorts, to see if the combination of paralyzing grief, stifling depression, and vulnerability could make him want to take his own life.

It did and it didn't.

He mostly just sat there, staring at the gun, his fingers wandering over the familiar angles — sharp and unforgiving. He mapped out the components and felt the small nicks in the metal, but as much as he knew that it would be terrifyingly easy to finish it all, he never actually wanted to. Killing himself would have been a relief, sure, and put an end to a lot of his suffering, but he didn't want to die.

He felt no _need_ to die — not like Cougar must have.

Then again, maybe it wasn't about dying. Maybe it wasn't about fleeing or escaping. Maybe all Cougar had wanted was for his life to end on _his_ terms, after having been robbed of so much — of having been put in a position where he had to question his faith, morals, and sanity on a daily basis.

Little by little, Jensen realized that it was wrong to say that Cougar had _wanted_ to die. Peace, was what he had wanted — relief from the nightmares and guilt. Control over his own fate and power to save someone that mattered — to give Jensen time to escape.

To the very end, Cougar had thought more of Jensen's safety than his own.

Cougar wouldn't have gotten shot if he hadn't insisted on being on point. If Jensen had been the first to step through that doorway, he would have been the one with the bullet holes in his chest. But Cougar hadn't let him. And every single one of Cougar's decisions after that point had been made not to guarantee his own destruction, but to ensure Jensen's safety. Even when he was bleeding to death, Cougar's main objective had been to save Jensen.

It was unfair to say that Cougar had wanted to die, because more than that — more than anything — he had wanted Jensen to live. He had refused to be the burden than could slow Jensen down, he had bought Jensen time when he needed to escape, and he had literally obliterated anyone who would have tried to come after Jensen.

Cougar had saved Jensen's life, at the cost of his own, but in doing so had been given the peace he had so desperately been searching for.

And Jensen couldn't hate him for that. He couldn't say that Cougar had been wrong. He couldn't say that if their roles had been reversed, he wouldn't have tried the very same thing. He loved Cougar with all of his heart and as much as it hurt, he knew he had to accept Cougar's choice. Because Cougar hadn't done it to hurt or to be selfish — he had chosen to die because doing so was what he had deemed to be the best solution. Jensen wasn't sure if he agreed, but he saw the logic in it. He had to come to terms with it.

Which wasn't easy. Jensen still spent a lot of time staring at his gun, wondering what would happen if he gave in. Not that he was actually suicidal. He still mourned Cougar, yes, and the grief would never quite leave him, but he made do. He missed Cougar more than he could express, but he didn't want to die. He didn't want to follow him — not yet.

Mostly because he knew that it would piss Cougar off something terrible.

Jensen actually wanted to live, but it was difficult to see that in the same light when Cougar wasn't there with him, and when Jensen was constantly reminded of how he had never got to kiss him — not even once. But thoughts like that were essentially useless. He couldn't change a thing.

Cougar was dead and Jensen would just have to live out his life to the best of his abilities. The world wasn't quite as beautiful without Cougar in it, but Jensen's life wasn't over, either. Maybe, in another year or two, he might even find that he enjoyed it again. He wasn't counting on that, but wouldn't mind being proven wrong.

He doubted that he would ever stop missing Cougar. The juvenile part of Jensen wanted to wallow in his own grief and sadness, just to be defiant, but it wouldn't result in anything except him making himself more miserable and depressed.

That didn't sound like a very tempting future.

There really was no such thing as getting over the loss of a loved one. The only difference was that it might eventually hurt less, but it would never actually stop. Jensen knew that much, and that was also why he still found himself studying his gun from time to time, absently toying with the idea of ending it all. But he was never actually serious.

Sooner or later, he always reached the same conclusion: life was worth living, even if it hurt.

That didn't change the fact that some wounds would never heal and on certain days it was a challenge just to get out of bed, but Jensen was strong enough to fight the grief. Just like Cougar had been. Jensen was strong enough to carry the grief with him, wherever he went, and he was strong enough to remember Cougar without flinching.

He was, however, incapable of forgiving himself for never having kissed Cougar when he had the chance, but he tried not to linger on that fact. He tried to accept the cards he had been dealt and find some kind of purpose for living again.

It wasn't easy, but at least he tried. He hadn't given up yet.

That had to count for something.

 

**Author's Note:**

> It feels really weird to be uploading all these old fics since I write slightly differently now. Quite interesting to see, though.
> 
> You can find the original Tumblr post [HERE](http://amethystinawrites.tumblr.com/post/111488055847/grief)


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